Alex Barron

In Peter Cameron’s short story, an angst-ridden teen wages a campaign of silence against the stepfather he can’t abide.

In 1879, the play “A Doll’s House” scandalized audiences with its tale of a mother who abandons her family to find herself. Now, 138 years later, Nora Helmer comes home. 

“Saw giant stacks of wheat today,” Monet noted. “I think I am going to start painting those.” It was all downhill from there. 

The New Yorker’s departing cartoon editor shows how it’s done.

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader perform a 9-1-1 call from a tele-commuter.

The New Yorker’s in-house satirist shares a moment from a Presidential Administration that’s almost beyond satire.

Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo founded a satirical Web site that finds plenty of fodder in the way women’s magazines speak to their readers.  

Straight from the White House, some big, shiny, new ideas for health care, including a single-payer option in which “the single payer . . . is you!”

Mo Willems is the Dr. Seuss or Maurice Sendak of our times.

John Fahey, the inventor of fingerstyle guitar, adapted folk and blues techniques into something entirely new. His influence was as great as his life was difficult.

Ron Howard began his career as an actor on family-friendly television, but he made his name as a film director with an uncommon range.      

Populists who were tired of the establishment went to war, overturned the regime, and took its spaceships.   

The creative class is press-ganged into building the “big, beautiful wall” along our southern border.

Once an anonymous cook struggling with addiction, Anthony Bourdain wrote a ribald memoir and rose to food stardom. Now he chows down with Presidents.

A cappella is the dorkiest thing in the world, the a-cappella composer Kristen Anderson-Lopez says.

Texting a new crush is tough, especially when you’re an alien with apocalyptic plans.    

Knowing what we know about football injuries and brain damage, would you let your kid play?  

Sitting is the new smoking. Time to quit. 

What does an owl tell himself when he needs a little boost?

He misses you. He misses a lot of things about you. But mostly he misses the iPad you took when you left.